Congressman Tom Emmer has praised the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for clarifying that ethereum's native cryptocurrency, ether, is not a security.

As previously reported, the SEC's director of Corporation Finance, William Hinman, told the audience at the Yahoo! All Markets Summit: Crypto conference last week that "current offers and sales of ether are not securities transactions."

With ethereum having built an ecosystem around its blockchain and smart contacts platform, a decision that its token must be governed under securities law in the U.S. – as suggested by some in the regulatory space – could have presented major difficulties for the project.

To gauge his reaction to the SEC comment, CoinDesk reached out to Emmer, a Republican who has previously spoken of the need to not over-regulate blockchain and cryptocurrencies.

"Like many of the innovations generated from these new technologies, ether does not fit neatly into the regulatory boxes Washington has created," Emmer told CoinDesk in a statement.